


Fake It

by WashiPuppy



Series: Connections [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Because Lance's mind, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hints of Ships only, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Platonic Cuddling, Self Confidence Issues, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 19:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7904113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WashiPuppy/pseuds/WashiPuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without the presence of other people to drown them out, the thoughts inside his head were getting too loud. Loud enough to drive him from his room in a desperate attempt to escape his own stupid head for long enough to sleep. It was too loud in there, and too honest. He needed to be around people, otherwise he was just left with...</p><p>Just himself, and the agitated, twitching feeling of his own skin.</p><p>A tale in which Lance and the Blue Lion have a one-sided conversation, Hunk is a Lance Whisperer, Pidge notices lots of things, Keith gets the wrong end of the stick, and Shiro gets a new nickname.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mental

After nearly biting it in an airlock, wandering around the halls at night had lost a bit of its appeal for Lance. He used to let his feet carry him wherever, poking into random rooms and walking up corridors no-one had walked through for millennia. And yet, just when he was pretty sure he was hopelessly lost, his feet inevitably took him down to the hangers, to the room where the Blue Lion sat. He'd sprawl himself against her, balanced on a paw or, if she were lying down, climb up onto her back and talk. Not necessarily about anything, just hollow words and empty air to fill the silence.

Now he went directly to Blue. No wandering, no deviation. Just Blue.

He hadn't seen Hunk up and about at night for a while now. His days were filled with training, then disappearing with Coran to do that Engineering thing he liked doing. Lance would hang around to talk, but Hunk was kind of distracted, what with being buried up to his armpits in machine innards, so he'd mostly been talking to himself outside of hammer-swing-and-elbow range. (Coran learned that distance the hard way when Hunk pulled out a hose with enough force to send his elbow straight back into Coran's sternum. Luckily, he brushed off Hunk's panicked concern with a winded laugh and a wave). Hunk threw in the occasional "Hmm" and "Yeah" to show that he was hearing Lance, even if he wasn't giving it his full attention.

Then again, Lance wasn't paying much attention to what he was saying either, so they had that in common. Lance occasionally threw in ridiculously out-there statements, just to see if he could throw Hunk off for a moment.

He saw Pidge at night, surrounded by wires and cables, lines of code and logic problems laid out before her ready to be pulled apart and re-arranged according to some arcane plan in her head. Lance was explicitly banned from coming within 5 meters of Pidge while she was playing with her computers, on pain of accidental-not-accidental electric shocks.

She'd been in a bad mood lately. He'd tried to bring her out of it, trying to draw them into games or arguments, but Pidge wasn't rising to it. Lance had decided to keep his distance.

He saw Keith at night, always sneaking out to the training rooms. Lance had watched him fight for an hour at a time from the observation deck, feeling like something heavy and uncomfortable had lodged itself in his chest. He hoped that Keith never noticed him watching.

He would leave before Keith finished, and find his way again to Blue. He'd talk until the words dissolved the heavy feeling in his throat.

He saw Allura sometimes, standing in the command centre of the castle like a figurehead on one of those old ships. Or maybe more like a ghost. When he saw that he'd stop wandering, and instead try to make the princess smile. They both missed the same things after all. The only difference was that everything Lance missed still existed. He had to remind himself sometimes that Allura and Coran had lost everything, and everyone. Sometimes Coran was there, talking quietly by her side with gentle affection.

He'd stopped walking past the command centre a couple of weeks ago.

He only sometimes saw Shiro on the training deck, and never with Kieth - either he holed himself up in his room when he couldn't sleep, or he'd found somewhere Lance never went past. Perhaps he'd find himself drawn towards Black the way Lance was drawn towards Blue.

Tonight, Lance didn't deviate. Tensions were high in the team in general, and he'd been chased out of rooms all week by Allura and the other Paladins when he'd gotten on their already frayed nerves. He didn't much feel like doing the rounds to see who else was awake, and he didn't really know what he'd say if he did encounter anyone anyway. He felt... distant, in a way that was hard to explain. Like he couldn't reach anyone here, or like he was slightly out-of-phase with everyone else. Maybe it was just loneliness. Without the presence of other people to drown them out, the thoughts inside his head were getting too loud. Loud enough to drive him from his room in a desperate attempt to escape his own stupid head for long enough to sleep. It was too loud in there, and too honest. He needed to be around people, otherwise he was just left with...

Just himself, and the agitated, twitching feeling of his own skin. Like he wanted to take it off and throw it away.

He noticed his hand twitching nervously as he entered the hanger and forced it to stop. He'd just... Talk to Blue for a while, until his thoughts were back in some semblance of order.

Blue rested on the ground, head between her giant mechanical paws, much more casual then Lance usually saw the other Lions when they were in their hangers. She looked like she was asleep, although Lance was pretty sure she didn't sleep, what with being mostly mechanical. Her presence felt awake anyway, shifting easily over to focus on him when he entered the room despite the enormous body making no obvious movement.

Lance reached out to touch her muzzle, running a hand along her jaw as he walked forwards.

"Hey, Blue. How's your night going, girl?" Lance asked, tone fond. He wasn't sure why he'd decided Blue was female, but it was in his head now, so he ran with it.

Blue was silent, although Lance thought he could feel her reacting to his question, pressing against the weird empty distance he felt between himself and the rest of the universe. A moment later he could hear her give a small, questioning growl.

"Me? I've been thinking a lot lately. About you, and me, and the others," Lance continued. "See, I've been trying to work something out."

Lance slouched against Blue's neck, arms wrapped around himself (it was cold, that's all). He felt that weight take up residence in his chest again, but he swallowed it down, instead tucking one hand up under his arm (that annoying twitchy one) and hooking the other on his neck.

"My mom would always say "You gotta fake it 'till it's real." Like, if you want to be something, work to be the thing and act like you already are the thing, until one day, it isn't an act. She worded it better, but yeah. So I've been trying not to think about whys and all that, trying to just go with the flow. Fake it until it's real.

"But the thing is... Even saying that you'd obviously choose me, I just couldn't work out why you waited. Why you didn't just take... Keith. Especially after you'd spent so much time calling to him. You wanted his attention, and you got it. So why didn't you choose him?"

Lance took a breath, relaxing back against Blue's neck. The words were a lot easier than he'd expected. Once he started, his thoughts strung together smoothly, and since he was only talking to Blue, he didn't need to backtrack over the wrong word or carefully pick the best phrase.

"But I think I might have worked it out now. Whenever Keith was in that cave with you, he was alone. I think you knew that just bringing one person wasn't enough, you needed at least a couple to help with the castle. No one had come for you for ages and ages, so if you were aware of time passing, you had to tweak that something was wrong with the Alteans. You're not stupid."

Lance was pretty sure he felt a small, pleased feeling coming from his Lion when he pointed that out, backed up by a low purr in his mind. He couldn't help but find that incredibly cute.

"So as long as he was alone, you wouldn't reveal yourself. And then one day, it happens. Keith isn't alone. More than that, he's got four other people with him.

"This is the key part of this theory. See, I think you looked into all of us. I mean, how can a lion 'pick a suitable Paladin' without the candidate having to do some sort of test to see if they fit the criteria? The only way is if you can somehow see inside them and see if they already have it."

Lance paused for a moment, Blue's presence feeling a little closer, he noted with some pride. Maybe she was pleased he'd worked all this out?

_'Finally working this out'_ His brain supplied. _'She had to be hoping he'd eventually click.' ___

"So I think you looked at all of us. You looked at Pidge, and wouldn't ya know there's the absolute perfect mind for the Green Lion. Pidge is just about the smartest person ever, and they're determined and practically fearless. Exactly what the Green Lion needs." Lance smiled a little as he spoke of his friends.

"You looked at Hunk, and man - double the luck. Because there's not many people kinder or more considerate than Hunk. Hunk's always thinking of others, and his heart is bigger than anyone's. There's no-one better than Hunk; the Yellow Lion would love him.

"Then Shiro, and by this point you must've been thrilled, because you were three for three. Because even those of us who'd just met him looked up to Shiro. He was nice too, despite everything. Shiro just naturally took control, like he was born to it. I mean, just look at him, man, with the jaw and the shoulders. He even looks like the perfect leader," Lance waved his hands around in front of him, trying to trace out a shape that indicated 'Shironess'. "Seriously, it should be illegal."

His hands dropped. "So that left you with two. Me, and Keith. So now you have to work something out. Could either of us fly the Red Lion? She's supposed to be the temperamental one, after all. So of the two of us, who would be more likely to convince Red to let them pilot her?

"Did it take much deliberation on your part? I don't think so, somehow. You'd already seen Keith before, so you knew him well enough. Knew he was..." Lance paused for a moment, unable to pick just one descriptor from the dozens that his mind put forth ( _'determined, fearless, reckless, sharp, stubborn, near perfect...'_ ) "What he was like." Lance let his voice drop into a mocking approximation of his flight instructor's voice. "'Natural pilot', 'Perfect flight instincts'..." his voice returned to normal, "...and all that. Only weakness was the theoretical components, barely. And, y'know, that whole... thing with the... The getting kicked out thing.

"It had to be Keith, of course it'd be Keith." _It was always Keith._ "And that left you with me. The only one left who could start you up so you could get everyone else to the Castle of Lions." Lance smiled, a little tired after monologuing. "That's why you picked me. Because I was the only one left wasn't needed elsewhere. That's what I worked out."

Should he continue? Blue's presence had gone quiet. He presumed it was because she was listening, since, y'know, giant robots didn't sleep.

"When we first got here... when Allura told us about the other Lions, and started telling us what the other Lions looked for... I might have panicked a little. The qualities you might be after, what would that say about me? Or maybe I didn't want to hear that you were the 'friendly' one, or the one whose job was to get the team together, or the 'Training Lion'. Like... the easy one." Lance paused and laughed, sharp and too loud in the quiet of the hanger. "Although that might make sense, I'm kind of the easy one too, aren't I? Or should I say the 'Accessible' one? Hmm... I've always liked 'Libertino'." He pet her on the side of the neck.

"I think that might not be too far off though. I figure that you're supposed to be more support, like Yellow, but instead of being a walking BFG, the thing that you bring to the team is that you're adaptable. You don't specialise, so you can be whatever the team is missing right then. And... You could work with what you had available. You'd be able to adapt to someone who wasn't... Quite up to the level you expected." Lance finished carefully. Just because he didn’t have to choose his words, didn't mean he wanted to give voice to all the thoughts clambering to the front of his mind.

_'Someone just faking it,'_

_'A failure who shouldn't even be here,'_

That voice sounded a lot like Iverson. 

_'A pilot who could barely fly'_

_'Someone so pathetic,'_

_'Just a bundle of insecurities with the personality of an irritating yappy dog,'_

Wow, last-insecure-thought there. No need to be so rude.

Lance stood, leaning against Blue's neck for a moment longer in a kind of half-shoulder bump, tired from talking and far too tired to try to push down on the thoughts whispering around his head right now. Saying all this out loud hadn't exactly quietened down his brain, but it made his thoughts feel more real. It was a fact now. Something that was known, if only in the quiet space between Blue's paws. He felt Blue press against those wispy thoughts, but he was starting to lose control of them. He was just way too drained right now.

"But here we are," Lance added quietly. He wasn't entirely sure how Blue heard him, so he had no idea if he was speaking loud enough for Blue to hear. "I... know I'm kind of letting the side down. But maybe we can both pretend like I'm not, 'till it's real?" 

_'If it's ever real.'_

Lance stepped back, speaking up a little. Just in case Blue had to actually 'Hear' him. "Hey, let's keep this little chat just between us, right?" He suggested, walking back towards the hangar door, hand up against Blue to stop himself from stumbling. "And Blue, I want you to know..."

_'You should find someone else,'_

_'Someone who really deserves you,'_

Stop it!

_'I wouldn't hold it against you.'_

Please, be quiet.

"...Whatever the reason, I'm glad I'm with you. I don't want- No, I won't let you down. See you tomorrow morning for training."

Lance began the meandering track back to his room. Maybe he was too tired, but he would have sworn that Blue's good-bye rumble sounded like a snarl.

∞∞∞∞∞o∞∞∞∞∞o∞∞∞∞∞o∞∞∞∞∞o∞∞∞∞∞

Training was a disaster.

Lance hadn't gotten nearly as much sleep as he'd have liked. That feeling of distance, of almost tangible, physical numbness still filled his head. He needed to shake it off, go through a few flight drills and maybe find something physical to wake his mind up. Then he could be himself again. Was his suit always this tight? It was making his skin crawl with irritation. Ugh, just ignore it.

For now, he'd just fake it.

The first sign that something was wrong had come early on, when they were just warming up with some basic formation drills, flying high over the surface of a snowy ice-ball planet in what should have been a nice, neat V formation. No matter how he manoeuvred, Blue refused to fall into her position at the back right of the V. Any time he tried to steer her near the other lions, she balked, stubbornly keeping her distance.

It wasn't long before everyone else picked up on it too. Hunk noticed first, being the one flying at the back of the other side of the V. He opened up a private line to Lance, just to check.

"... something wrong? You gotta tell me if something's wrong." Lance's voice was a harsh whisper on the other end of the line.

"Uh, Lance?" Hunk asked. There was a yelp.

"Hunk! I didn't hear you ring in."

"I gathered. Is something wrong over there?" Hunk asked, concerned. the Blue Lion gently glided back into place, only to drop back suddenly when the Red Lion flipped its tail in front of them. Weird.

"Pffft, Nah. Just a bit - "

"Lance? What's going on back there?" Shiro's voice sounded through the coms. Hunk looked over to the other lions to see them all looking back at the Blue lion as they flew.

"What? Nothing! Everything's just fine back here. All good." Lance responded quickly before flicking his coms off. Hunk narrowed his eyes, but returned focus to the formation. This would need to be worked out once they got back to the castle. Mid-training was not the best time to be prying facts out of Lance. 

"Come on, Blue!" Lance hissed, leaning over the controls in his cockpit, "What's up with you today?" He tried to manoeuvre her again, pulling her nearly into position until she deliberately stopped, dropping back from the group to be just out of formation. 

"Please, don't do this! I really need you to work with me today, OK?" Lance hissed again, sounding a little desperate to his own ears. He could feel Blue's presence, pressing against his mind just outside of the empty void that surrounded him - He could almost physically feel Blue as a phantom warm weight against his back (it wasn't quite right, but it was so close to real that it made his skin ache), or as a rumbling in his ear, growling sometimes, then purring soothingly. 

"Are you sure?" And there was Keith, Looking and sounding both annoyed and unimpressed. "Because usually you can at least fly in formation."

Lance growled to himself, a spike of irritation lighting up his thoughts for a moment. No way he wasn't going to respond to that! Unfortunately, his wits appeared to have completely abandoned him. (Curse you, distracted sluggy brain.)

"Bite me." He snapped, pushing harder against the controls, trying to drag Blue into formation.

_'Well done, Lance. That sure showed them. You idiot.'_

Blue pushed forwards, jaws opening up and snapping shut on Red's tail for a moment.

Lance blinked hands stilling on the controls. Pretty sure he hadn't told her to... Nip the Red Lion. Not directly, at least. 

Red swung around to face them with a roar, stopping them in their tracks. Keith's face was a mask of surprise, clearly unsure of what the hell had just happened.

"...Wow." Keith loaded as much as he could into that word. It came out perfectly flat.

The other Lion's had all stopped, turning to face them. Lance felt himself go simultaneously numb and hot.

_'You've done it now. You must have seriously pissed Blue off last night.'_

But she wasn't just not responding or ignoring him. She was... playing up? He could feel her, pressing against his mind, alternating between growling and purring... Could a Lion be angry AND purring at the same time?

"What the hell is going on with you two?!" That was Pidge, already short fuse clearly used up.

"Nothing's going on with me! Lance bit me!"

"What?!" Oh look, Hi Shiro. Now he was here too. That'd add a nice extra layer of embarrassment to this whole thing. Maybe he could just eject from the cockpit and die on the frozen planet below now. "Lance? What's gotten into you?"

Lance wanted to say 'It's not me! It's Blue!', but two things stopped him.

The first was a thread of doubt, suggesting that Blue had started rejecting him. That feeling alone was like a blast of cold water, just a moment too quick for him to properly deflect it. He ran through his usual reminders; She wasn't ignoring him, she still turned on, he could still fly her... but she wasn't responding to the controls properly. She clearly didn't want to do what he asked her to, it was like she didn't want to get in close to the other lions, and even though he hadn't told her to, she'd bitten... Keith's lion when... he'd wanted to lash out...

Oh god, it was him, wasn't it? He was the problem.

The second thing was a definite feeling of needing to hold on to something.

"Hold on to what?" He asked before Blue just... dropped. 

Lance was pretty sure he could hear the startled shouts of everyone else mixed in with his own panicked, manly shrieking as Blue plunged feet first for the snow covered ground below them. Without thinking, he grabbed at the sides of his pilot's chair.

"Lance!" Hunk cried out, his lion's head whipping back and forth as though looking for whatever had suddenly knocked Blue from the sky. His voice drowned out Pidge's own curse at the sudden disappearing lion act.

Keith barely even registered what had happened before he pushed his lion down after the suddenly plummeting Lance. He heard a roar above him that sounded like Shiro's lion as the others flew down after him.

Lance felt his chest swoop as the ground rushed up to meet their paws. Blue suddenly slowed, leaving Lance feeling a tick of weightlessness, before their paws collided with the snowy ground, sinking down as Blue's body crouched to absorb the shock. The Red lion landed less than a tick later.

All of his coms came to life as one, even Allura on the link back to the Castle. A cacophony of "Lance!", "Don't Do that!" and "What the hell are you doing?", one "Are you alright?" from Shiro, and one "Man, you scared the hell out of me!" from Hunk.

Lance found himself staring wide-eyed at the clamouring of faces, from Kieth, still frozen in an almost comical look of surprise and panic, to Hunk's genuine relief, to Pidge quickly moving from startled to pissed, to Shiro, who was definitely annoyed with a touch of worry, to Allura's wide-eyed disbelief. And Lance had nothing to say. Nothing he could say would explain this. HE couldn't properly explain.

_'You fucked up. You fucked up, and you don't even know how.'_

Blue dropped lower, emitting a low rumbling. Right - Blue was reacting to him differently today. He just needed to figure out why and fix it. Everyone was looking at him, suddenly quiet now, they could SEE him...

Come on, think, think. Say something.

ANYTHING

Lance began laughing, loud, obnoxious and hollow-sounding to his own ears.

"Oh my god! you guys should see your faces!"

"DAMMIT LANCE!" Pidge and Keith shouted, almost in unison, Pidge in particular punctuating her shout by slamming her hands on the console. Keith's eyebrows scrunched together, trying to work out what was going on. Had Lance not sold it enough? Allura looked suitably angry (Sorry, Allura), but Hunk was squinting at him with a calculating look, as though he could see right through him.

He didn't dare look at Shiro.

_'Coward.'_

Luckily he was spared from having to say anything else by Allura speaking up.

"Everyone, return to the Castle at once." She ordered sharply, cutting out the communication signal. At least Keith no longer looked like he was trying to work out exactly what was going on in his head. He was too busy being grumpy.

"Great. Thanks, Lance." Keith growled. “Exactly what I wanted to do today.”

The Red lion took off, closely followed by Pidge in the Green lion. Lance felt Blue flinch slightly, although that might have been his own hands jerking on the controls.

Hunk stayed on the monitor a little longer.

"Hey," Hunk began, before pausing as he tried to work out what to actually say.

"Listen, Hunk," Lance interrupted. "Let's just... get back to the castle, yeah? Anything else can wait."

Hunk nodded. "Sure. Don't go hiding though. I will find you."

"You got it, big guy." Lance gave him a thumbs up. Hunk only narrowed his eyes before cutting the feed and taking off, as though he'd already worked out what was going on and definitely had something to say about it.

On the one hand, Lance hoped he did. On the other hand, he had a feeling he might know what Hunk was thinking, and the thought of it made him feel like his insides were trying to re-arrange themselves into anatomical impossibilities.

_'Stupid. Pathetic. To go crawling to others in the vague hope of some care.'_

Stop it. I'm fine.

_'Pleading for scraps. Scraping and bowing for whatever is discarded your way.'_

I won't be doing that. Nothing like that will happen.

_'Begging for something given only in obligation. For a fakery of real affection.'_

Lance's thoughts were derailed by his window suddenly being filled with a view of the Black Lion's paws. 

Blue froze. Lance froze. Somewhere during his rebuttal of his own internal monologue, Blue had hunkered down into the snow. so the already much larger Black Lion stood far above them. Lance and Blue looked up, following the line of Black's chest to where her head was silhouetted against the pale green sky this planet had.

Holy Crow that was cool.

The Black Lion lowered her head, closer and closer until Lance could see through both their windows and into the Black Lion's cockpit. Could see that Shiro's eyes were closed.

Lance held his breath as the Black Lion's nose gently nudged at Blue's head twice before the Black Lion straightened up and took off.

He let himself breathe again.


	2. The Physical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perfect. This was the perfect chance. The gazelle was wounded, unable to escape the lion. Hunk pounced, dropping to the ground and picking Lance up by the shoulders. He felt the slight muscles underneath tense at the contact, and Lance's hands flew out and braced himself against Hunk's arms to prevent himself from being pulled in.

Pidge turned at the sound of footsteps, ready to shout at Lance because dammit, how dare he scare her like that first thing in the morning when she'd already been up half the night ripping through the long range communication codes they'd stolen weeks ago now and they were still trying to build a proper long range receiving station for them and they needed a sorting algorithm for captured transmissions and oh my GOD it was taking so damn long, why couldn't she just work it out...

Except it wasn't Lance who walked in, but Allura.

Pidge looked around. Everyone else was here. Keith was by a wall with his arms crossed, fingers tapping restlessly on his arm, Hunk was rocking on his feet and looking around him, probably looking for Lance too, Shiro was standing by Keith, Coran was here waiting for them when they arrived... But still no Lance.

Allura had stern words practically visible in the air around her ready for her to pluck them out and lash them at her contrary group of Paladins.

She only faltered slightly upon looking around the room and noticing someone was still missing.

"Where's Lance?"

"Hasn't shown up yet." Hunk answered, eyes narrowing. Pidge recognised Hunk's "Suspecting" face. "Maybe he's having some problems getting back? He did seem to be having some problems with his Lion."

"His Lion landed some time ago," Allura shook her head, harsh look fading slightly.

"Is he hiding in his Lion?" Keith asked no one in particular, looking back towards Blue's tower with clear irritation. Pidge was pretty sure that there was a fight brewing there, she just hoped it was either diffused or delayed until after Allura had finished with them.

Allura looked towards the tower where the Blue Lion lived, then back to Shiro.

"Can you raise him on the coms?"

Shiro nodded and slipped his helmet back on, hand pausing at the side of his head to activate the coms.

"Lance?" He was quiet for a moment, eyebrows drawn together. "I don't think he's wearing his helmet. I can hear him, but I don't think he can hear me."

Hunk had pulled on his helmet and switched his com on before Shiro had even finished. Seriously, he could be so damn nosy sometimes.

That didn't stop Pidge from doing the exact same thing, because she was still kind of mad, and Lance might be doing something weird. Keith slipped his helmet on a moment later, since everyone else was already doing it.

"-on't want to go, but you're going to have to let me out anyway, beautiful." Lance's voice was distant, like he'd taken his helmet off but was still holding it, probably near his head. There was a loud banging. "Alright, come on, seriously. Open the door."

"Who is he talking to?" Keith asked.

"His Lion." Hunk answered quickly, "I heard him talking to her earlier."

"What's going on?" Allura asked, crowding closer to Hunk's helmet to try and hear what was being said. Coran leaned in and put his head next to Keith trying to do the same, earning him a slightly panicked side-eye from the red Paladin.

"I don't understand what you want right now, Blue. Are you angry with me? ... Unhappy about something?" Lance sounded frustrated.

"I think the Blue Lion's locked him in?" Pidge responded, scrunching her face up in thought. "Can they do that?"

"Technically Yes, but I don't see why they would." Coran responded, arm around Keith's head to keep him close enough for him to hear. Keith looked like he intensely regretted putting his helmet on. "The Blue Lion would have to deliberately override the internal release, and the pilot should be able to override that override anyway. Unless the Lion overrides the pilot's override of the first override. But by then it's just getting stupid."

There was a slightly softer thump at the other end of the coms, which sounded a bit like Lance's head smacking against something hard.

"This has to do with something I said last night, doesn't it?" Lance asked quietly on the other end of the line, just inside hearing. Pidge looked over to Hunk, who was trying to fill Allura in, in case he had any other insights to offer.

"Apparently he said something to the Lion last night?" Hunk repeated. "Buuuut, I don't know what that was."

"Wait, is this because I implied that you were easy? I didn't mean it like that, beautiful, we both know that's me." Lance tone was playful, if understandably strained, and Pidge nearly choked on a shocked laugh. Allura and Coran looked at her curiously. Yeah, that was not something she was explaining.

"Alright, turn the Coms off," Shiro ordered sharply, moving to turn his own off. "We know what's happening now, anything else is just eavesdropping."

"Is it because I worked it out? Did you... not want me to know?" Lance's voice said quietly - was that Lance's voice? Shiro's hand hesitated a moment before flicking his Coms off. Pidge made no move to do the same, and noticed that Hunk didn't either. Keith was hesitating, hand hovering near his helmet, possibly because Coran's head was still pressed to the side of it.

Allura bit her lip, although Pidge noted she didn't actually move out of hearing range. She probably hadn't even heard the last thing Lance said, it was so quiet.

Suddenly there was loud scraping noise, like the helmet had been dragged across something. Pidge flinched at the sudden loudness, while Keith flicked the com off and pulled his helmet off in one smooth motion, knocking Coran on the way. He held the helmet out and looked at it like it had personally attacked him.

Allura jumped back and smoothed her hands down her front to try to cover her surprise.

"Does it bother you that I know now too? But then, why keep me at all?" Lance's voice sounded further away now, but raised as it was, they could hear it.

Pidge looked at Hunk, who shook his head, eyes still narrowed. Ok, so he didn't know what this was about either, but he had 'suspicions'?

Pidge couldn't hear the next thing that was said, but whatever it was, it was followed by a clunking noise.

"Thanks, Blue."

Hunk switch his com off and pulled off his helmet. Pidge followed suit. 

"Door unlocked. He's on his way." Hunk informed everyone. Coran rubbed the side of his head, pouting judging by the jut of his moustache.

There was an awkward moment of silence. Pidge wondered if everyone else was trying to work out how best to ask 'Hey, so... heard you were fighting with your Lion. What about?' Because Pidge was SUPER curious now.

Rapid footsteps up the hallway signalled the approach of Lance. He slid into the room.

"Sorry, here now!" He announced, as though that hadn't been obvious.

"Having problems with your Lion?" Pidge asked, forcing herself to sound casual. Just a friendly enquiry, nothing suspicious. "Since everyone else got here a while ago."

Shiro was giving her a disapproving look, but hey - it was a perfectly legitimate question. Lance didn't seem to pick up on anything at least.

"What? Nah, me and Blue are good."

"Are you sure? You seemed to be having... Difficulties" Allura said tactfully before drawing herself up, seemingly remembering some of the words she had prepared. "Your Lion should be an extension of your own will."

Lance's right hand twitched, drawing Pidge's attention.

"That bond, the bond between a Lion and their Paladin, is the foundation that Voltron stands on. And the bond between the Paladins themselves is what gives Voltron it's strength." Allura finished, hesitating before continuing. Pidge guessed she was re-working the next part in her head. "If you're having difficulties controlling your Lion..."

"There's no difficulties," Lance bit back, surprisingly sharp. His hand twitched again as he seemed to deliberately relax back. "Me and Blue are cool, don't worry about it. Hey, we're ready to fly right now," He grinned, "Just say the word, princess."

"No, something is wrong." Keith stood up straight as he spoke.

Uh-oh. Pidge tried to get him to stop talking by thinking really loudly at him, but of course that didn't work.

"Did you do something to the Blue Lion?" Keith asked, and Pidge mentally sighed. The problem was, Keith was trying to understand, not provoke Lance, but Lance wouldn't take it that way. No, he'd bristle up and say...

"I'm sorry, what?" Yep, pretty much something like that. "No, I didn't 'Do Something'! What exactly do you think I'd have done?" Lance turned to face Keith, leaning towards him with that odd 'I'm going to bend to look at you from below because I'm so damn tall' thing he did. Challenging Keith to say something. So, of course, Keith would do just that.

"I don't know, something to... Annoy it?" Keith countered, resting his hands on his hips. "I guess if anyone could annoy a giant Lion, it would be you."

This was the point where Lance would land a counter-insult, usually a pretty lame and witless one at that, escalating the issue. Pidge predicted it'd probably about Kieth's ability to annoy. Shiro already looked like he was preparing to intervene and get things back on track, so he probably predicted the same thing.

Lance's hand twitched again. Pidge had noticed that happening over the last couple of days, but never so often. It'd happened when he tried to bug her while she was working, so she figured it was him trying not to touch her stuff, like she'd asked him.

Lance straightened up, stepped back, shrugged and gave Kieth a lopsided smile.

"What can I say? I'm just a natural at it."

Wait, what?

Lance was going off script. Pidge looked around at everyone else, to see if anyone else had noticed. Hunk sighed, like he'd been expecting exactly this. Keith at least seemed completely thrown - Good, then it wasn't just Pidge that didn't predict this.

"It's true, right? I'm probably the most annoying person you'll ever meet." Lance stepped back again, crossing his arms.

"What?" Keith asked, confused by the sudden turn in the conversation.

"Hey, your irritation has a name now. You can't forget me anymore, huh?" There was heat behind Lance's words, despite the loose, casual way he flung his arms out. "It's L-A-N-C-"

"Lance!" Allura barked out, hand raised to the side of her head.

"That's the name. See, the Princess gets it."

"Lance..." Coran repeated, more gently. Pidge was expecting the twitch this time, so she wasn't surprised when she saw it.

"Enough," Shiro spoke quietly, but firmly. He stepped forwards, resting a hand on Kieth's shoulder briefly as he passed. Lance crossed his arms again, looking down at the ground.

Shiro sighed, bringing his hand up to rest on the back of his neck.

"Look, we-" Shiro began, just as Lance said "I-".

Shiro stopped and motioned for Lance go first. Lance looked up at him for a moment before slouching and looking away. 

"Sooo, I get that this is supposed to be disapproving lecture time, but I'm probably not gonna absorb anything you say right now. So what I'm thinking is, I'll go to my room, you guys go..." Lance looked up, smirking as he began backing out of the room, aiming finger guns at Shiro, "You do you, and we can meet up in the afternoon for the schooling and disciplining, yeah?"

Shiro let his hand fall.

"That wasn't..." He trailed off, looking at Lance. Lance only held his eyes for a moment before looking away.

"Okay." Shiro said.

"What?" Lance and Keith exclaimed in chorus, the former hopefully while the latter's voice was pure incredulity. 

"We'll talk later," Shiro held up a finger, signalling for silence. "On the condition that you tell me exactly what's going on, what happened today. No taking around it. Write it down if you have to."

"You... Want me to give you a report?" Lance crunched his face up in distaste for a moment before brightening. "I can do that. Right, definitely. Later!"

Lance was out the door before anyone else could say another word.

Keith spoke first. "What was all that about?"

Pidge could only nod. "Yeah...I thought he already got that whole 'not recognising him' thing out of his system with the 'forgetting that good team line' thing." She thought for a moment. "Unless there's another thing that I don't know about?"

"Wait, that was...?" Keith turned to Pidge. "Explain."

Hunk sighed, and clapped Shiro on the shoulder. "Thanks for that, man."

Shiro raised an eyebrow in question.

"Don't worry, I've got this." Hunk pointed his thumb towards himself. "Give me a couple of hours, and I'll have Lance returned to you completely back to normal."

"Really?" Allura looked somewhat impressed. "You can do that?"

"Of course," Hunk smiled warmly at her. "Trust me, I'm like... the Lance whisperer."

With that, he ambled out of the room.

Keith stepped in front of Pidge. "Explain."

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The best way to do this was an ambush, Hunk decided. If Lance hadn't got this bad, if one of them had caught it a bit earlier, maybe he could be casual about it and just invite him out to goof off for a bit before moving in. But if Lance was already that twitchy, he'd be resistant. He was probably already in a negative thought tailspin. He'd have to go in hard and fast, accept no excuses.

Hunk tightened his bandanna. Right, he had a plan.

Lance needed a lot of physical contact. He was incredibly tactile at the best of times, but Hunk had learned that Lance used touch to bolster himself. If he was left without it, he'd get anxious and restless, and he wouldn't get enough sleep.

Hunk was a high-contact person too, so usually they had each other. But Lance would get funny sometimes.

Hunk didn't bother knocking on the door to Lance's room. That'd just give Lance a chance to freak out. Instead, he overrode the lock with a little technical know-how, slid the door open and jumped through.

He spotted Lance immediately, mid-step with one hand tangled in his hair, wearing running shorts, a T-shirt, and a wide-eyed, startled look.

"You!" Hunk pointed, beaming from ear to ear before throwing his arms out. "LOVE ME!"

"WAGH!" Lance replied eloquently, stepping backwards. He then promptly tripped over, landing heavily on his backside. "Ow..."

Perfect. This was the perfect chance. The gazelle was wounded, unable to escape the lion. Hunk pounced, dropping to the ground and picking Lance up by the shoulders. He felt the slight muscles underneath tense at the contact, and Lance's hands flew out and braced himself against Hunk's arms to prevent himself from being pulled in.

"Were you planning to run away from me?" Hunk asked, poking Lance in the side.

"What's this 'Away' business? I was just planning to go for a run!" Lance protested, arm instinctively moving to bat Hunk's away from his side. Thank gave Hunk the opening he needed to pull Lance in, exclaiming in triumph as Lance overbalanced against him. Lance flinched.

"S-seriously, Hunk," He pulled back as far as Hunk would allow, "You don't - need to do this."

"Hush now, let me love you."

Lance scowled off to the side for a second before an idea appeared to occur to him. His eyes flicked up to meet Hunk's.

Uh-oh. He knew that look.

Sure enough, Lance leaned in against him, a lascivious smile taking over his face.

"You should have said, Big Cat." he drawled, letting his hands settle on Hunk's shoulders, "You know, I'm happy to-"

"No!" Hunk bopped him gently on the head, "Bad Lance."

"Oh come on!" Lance whined, thankfully back to his normal voice. Hunk was glad for it. It wasn't just that Lance had gotten it into his head that romance and sex were the most 'acceptable' ways to get physical affection outside of your own family. That was... annoying, but whatever. It was times like this, when Lance acted like he thought he deserved affection only if he was providing something in return.

Hunk much preferred the usual 'take everything as if you had a right to it (before it's taken away)' mentality Lance had. That was much easier to deal with.

"I've told you, no paying for P.A. with..." Hunk wiggled his fingers descriptively.

"With what?" Lance was tense, hands twitching.

"With your ass, Ass." Hunk grumbled, grabbing Lance's legs and pulling him into his lap. He jumped, but he didn't struggle.

Lance huffed, losing some of the tension in his body. "Joke's on you, I was going to offer you a B.J."

"Uh-huh." Man, he always forgot how lanky Lance was. It was like trying to arrange a bundle of sticks.

"And, you know, I'm pretty goo-" Hunk clamped a hand over Lance's mouth.

"Nope, nope, T.M.I. Don't need to hear about your sex life. Past or present."

Lance looked away awkwardly and mumbled under his breath. Finally he gave up, curling in against Hunk and hiding his face.

"Sorry." Lance mumbled loud enough for Hunk to hear.

"I'd rather you were sorry for not telling me what's going on with you." Hunk offered, pulling Lance into a proper hug. Lance was silent, which was about what he expected. 

"But I'll settle for you not calling me Big Cat again."

"Aww, but Big Cat's a cool nickname."

"Yellow isn't even the biggest cat. Black's the biggest cat."

"I can't call Shiro 'Big Cat'!" Lance sounded scandalised, but he was slowly relaxing against Hunk, arms sliding to hold him up more securely.

"I dare you to call Shiro 'Big Cat'. In my presence."

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At Keith's insistence, Pidge sat him down and tried to explain her theory. She told him of how the instructors back at the Galaxy Garrison had used Keith's position and record (before he'd been kicked out for fighting) as a stick to beat Lance with, as some kind of misplaced petty revenge at losing their chance to mentor the next prodigy. She theorised that Lance had re-worked it in his head to make it fit into an ongoing rivalry, to give him something besides his instructors to put all that negative stuff into. But when they met again, Keith didn't remember him. Of course not, because it wasn't a real rivalry between equals. Keith had been able to forget that Lance ever existed, while Lance wasn't allowed to forget Keith. And she figured Lance had been pretty salty about that, maybe salty enough to deny any peace offering in order to keep up the rivalry.

She clearly didn't think much of the personnel at the Garrison; The words 'Arse' and 'Jerk' came up a lot, and only sometimes when referring to Lance. 

Keith asked why Lance would have even said anything if he was so determined to be his enemy. He was just thinking out loud, so he hadn't really expected an answer. Pidge had one anyway.

"Maybe he thought he was going to die." Pidge had responded, looking pinched and unhappy. Keith was suddenly reminded that Lance might not have been the only one who thought they were going to die that day. "Maybe he wanted to have some cool final words. Or he realised that he doesn't hate you and wants to be your friend, so he tried to say something nice. Then he lived, so, y'know, none of that now."

Keith thought about it for a while. Lance still seemed to be angry at him, and if Pidge was right then it definitely wasn't something that was his fault. It wasn't fair for Lance to be pissed about something like that. He could just let that go, or he could confront Lance on it, head on.

Keith didn't run away from things. So when Shiro asked if Lance was around yet, Keith had agreed to go look for him, which was... not a normal occurrence. Keith usually didn't look for Lance. Lance was the one who found Kieth, or Keith would just follow the sound of noise until he ended up where Lance was. Neither of these seemed to be an option right now.

Well, Lance had said he was tired. Maybe he'd actually gone back to his room to rest? With that thought in mind, Keith headed to their sleeping quarters.

He turned down the hallway that led past Lance's room and immediately froze. Something was wrong- Lance's door looked like it was busted, the front lock hanging loose and the door partially open. Had someone gotten on board the castle? Was the castle playing up again? Had they gotten Lance? What about Hunk?

Keith crouched, un-clipping his Bayard from it's position on his belt as he began creeping forwards. He listened carefully, trying to pick out any sounds of movement from within the room. As he crept closer, he began to pick out quiet voices, straining to hear what they were saying.

"-en I tried just putting an arm on his shoulders, he judo flipped me." Said the first voice. It was hard to say for sure, but that could be Lance? Keith couldn't remember hearing him sound quite like that, but the overall sound was close.

There was a sound like a snort of breath. "I'd ask if you snuck up on him, but this is Keith we're talking about. No way." And that voice was definitely Hunk. They didn't sound like they were in trouble - but why was the door busted? Keith crept closer.

"Hey, I can sneak. After Pidge, who I think might legitimately be a ninja, I'm like the stealthiest person here." That sounded more normal for Lance, at least, although it was muffled.

"Speaking of, what exactly did she taser you with?"

"I dunno. Mechanical stuff. Something that spat lightning, at least."

Keith peaked carefully around the door to see inside the room, and froze.

Hunk was sitting on the ground, legs loosely crossed, with Lance curled up in his lap, slumped bonelessly against him. Lance's head was pressed into Hunk's shoulder, one hand resting on Hunk's arm while the other was somewhere behind them out of sight. Hunk meanwhile was rubbing a hand up and down Lance's side, exposing a surprising amount of Lance's waist and ribs as his hand moved over the tanned skin under Lance's shirt. His other hand rested on Lance's bare leg. It took Kieth almost a whole tick to confirm that yes, Lance had shorts on.

Keith knew he should back up, turn around and come up the hallway again, maybe make some noise on the way, but he couldn't move. He barely felt like he could breathe, he'd been so blindsided by the unexpected intimacy of the scene in front of him when he'd been expecting... What, exactly? 

Were Hunk and Lance involved? He hadn't known they were dating. He was pretty sure Lance had been flirting with a humanoid alien with woolly hair and five eyes last time they landed on a planet, but that was weeks ago now. He'd even shared a judgemental eye-roll with Hunk then, so he hadn't seemed bothered.

And why wouldn't they have said anything?

Lance shifted, drawing his legs further. They were kind of ridiculously long, now that Keith looked at them.

"I have no idea what I'm going to tell Shiro." He mumbled into Hunk's chest, just loud enough for Keith to hear. Hunk made a questioning sound. 

Keith should go. Creep back before this got more weird. But he couldn't move.

Lance tucked his head down further, as though hiding behind his arm. "I feel sick."

"Relax. I'm sure it'll be OK." Hunk responded, poking Lance in the hip.

"Hey," Lance whined and shifted away from the poking finger. He then groaned. "Ow! Damn, my butt hurts."

Kieth's hand slipped, although luckily he caught himself before he hit the ground.

What?

"And whose fault is that?" Hunk asked.

"It's your fault." Lance reached a hand up to poke Hunk in the nose. "100% your fault."

What?! Well, at least that had shaken him enough that he could move again.

Hunk snickered. "Sorry, not sorry."

Okay. Keith needed to leave now. He'd just very carefully move backwards and forget he'd heard that. Shiro could collect Lance himself.

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Everyone in the lounge room looked up as Keith re-entered, immediately noting that he was missing both a Lance and a Hunk.

"No luck?" Pidge asked. Keith stared at her blankly for a moment.

"I didn't see anything," He responded, sounding kind of odd to Pidge. She shared a look with Shiro, quietly confirming that yes, he thought so too.

Shiro looked like he was about to get up to go find Lance himself when Hunk walked in, the individual in question a step or two behind. He'd changed out of his paladin armour at some point and into... Altean running shorts? Huh. Who knew Lance had running clothes. Lance seemed like the person least likely to have running clothes. But then, he'd been the first person to work out where spare clothes lived.

Pidge watched Lance's hand for twitches as Shiro stood and walked out of the recessed floor. So far, all clear

"You ready?" Shiro asked.

Lance leaned on one hip tugging on the hem of his shirt nervously before planting his hands on his hips and nodding, smirking slightly.

"Yeah. Let's get this over with, Big Cat."

Hunk put his hand up to his mouth, hiding a grin.

Shiro looked at Lance for a split second longer than usual before shrugging and gesturing to the door with a smile. Lance audibly took a breath and let it out in a long sigh, left hand holding his right by the wrist.

Nervousness, but no obvious twitches. Not like this morning, at least.

After Shiro and Lance left, Coran looked over at Hunk, beaming.

"Well, I don't know what you did, but he sure looks a lot less on edge now." Coran exclaimed as Hunk slumped down on the couch.

"Lance? Ah, he just needed some Hunk Therapy." Hunk waved a hand dismissively.

Behind them, Keith made a strangled sound and strode out of the room.

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**Bonus!**

The Space mice seemed extra playful today, judging by their antics. Allura couldn't help but smile at them as they clambered up to a console next to her, waving to get her attention.

"You know a secret?" Allura asked mischievously. She hesitated for only a moment. "Go on then, What do you have?" she finished, letting herself have this moment. Maybe she shouldn't encourage it, but it was too much fun to gossip with the mice, even if the conversation often involved a Charades component.

The angular blue mouse stepped forwards, standing up tall.

"This is about Lance? Oh! Do you know what happened this morning?"

The blue mouse nodded and began tracing out a circle around himself. Alura watched him, confused until the large yellow mouse mimed knocking on the circle.

"Lance... has a force field?"

The blue mouse pointed at his head.

"Oh! I see - a mental barrier."

The blue mouse began to move erratically, while the yellow mouse sluggishly moved around them, pretending to smack against invisible wall traced out by the circle, never touching the blue mouse.

Allura blinked. "Wait, even the Blue Lion couldn't get through?"

In answer, the red mouse joined the conversation by grabbing the blue mouse by the tail and using it to pull itself through the invisible wall. It promptly poked the blue mouse in the back of the head.

"So the Blue Lion... snuck in through the back way?" Allura asked, somewhat confused. "Or do you just mean a gap in his barrier?"

The red mouse tapped the blue on the back of the head again. The blue mouse bristled.

"Oh, right. Then, how much closer are they?"

The blue mouse gestured wildly, interrupted by the yellow one carefully resting himself against their back and leaning over to rest on their head. They both slowly, but inevitably, collapsed onto the console's surface.

The smallest of the mice fell over, squeaking with laughter. Allura laughed along with them. "I see, I see. That's very close indeed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... I couldn't resist the accidental overhearing double entendre trope. Or the Game Grumps reference. I am weak.
> 
> Thanks for making it this far!

**Author's Note:**

> So... This is kind of the second fan-thing I've ever written, and the first time I've ever posted something outside of a LiveJournal comment section. But the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to write it out ^^;; And since I wrote it, I figured... Yeah, OK. I'll share.
> 
> I don't suppose you'd listen if I asked you to be gentle? :P


End file.
